Flaps on take-off and landing

Chris W writes:

Head tracking equipment for the PC that works in MSFS and many other
programs do exist. With out it flight simulators are extremely boring
to me. You really need to look into them, they increase the level of
realism by an order of magnitude. The one I have is called TrackIR.

Sounds interesting, but at $180, it's well beyond my budget at the
moment.

I'm sure there are others out there, but I don't know what they are.
The TrackIR works by using an inferred camera that you put over your
monitor and point it at your head. The low end version that I use comes
with a set of silver stickers that the inferred camera picks up really
well and tracks. You just stick them on a hat and go. Then it
exaggerates your head movements in the game, so say 10 degrees of
movement of your real head translates to 120 degrees of movement for the
game head. The first 3 or 4 times you use it, you will probably get a
head ache, but after you get used to it, the head aches stop. By the
way, the 10 to 120 degree numbers were just made up, the real ratio is
configurable with a little utility that shows your head on one side and
the game head on the other side so you can see what how much it moves.
They have a higher end version that not only tracks which way your head
is pointing but it also tracks movement from side to side, forward and
backward up and down and side to side tilt (think roll here). The basic
version just does pitch and yaw, which does work well. A friend has the
more advanced version and tells me he has to turn off the roll feature
because it becomes to disorienting while flying, but he does like using
the full functionality in the Nascar simulator.

I'm confused. Exactly what does this device do?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote:

Sounds interesting, but at $180, it's well beyond my budget at the
moment.


You don't need the high end version the TrackIR Pro 3 is 120 and that is
all I have. It works great. Once you use it you will wonder why anyone
would bother flying or even driving any simulator with out it. I have
used MSFS back in the days of the 5Mhz 8088 computers on a green screen
monitor. In my opinion the head tracking is as big or bigger of an
improvement than how much graphics have improved since then. Before I
heard about and tried the head tracking equipment, I was totally bored
with flight simulators. Now it is a lot of fun and tons easier to make
smooth landings too. Not to mention being able to make turns in the
pattern at the right time and get lined up with the run way coming out
of the turn to final.


I'm confused. Exactly what does this device do?


I don't think I explained the difference between the 2 versions very
well. First think about all the ways you can move your head or
anything for that mater. There are 6 degrees of freedom. You can move
in x, y or z. That is 3 degrees of freedom. You can rotate about the x
y and Z axis. That is the other 3. The basic tracker assumes you only
have 2 degrees of freedom, rotation about the Z and Y axis. That is
with the Z axis being vertical and the Y axis going from left to right.
In aviation terminology this corresponds to yaw and pitch
respectively. Obviously even with the low end 2 axis version you can
still move your head in any way you want, but the device just senses the
movement of the little silver dot it is looking at, and assumes the
movement is caused by rotation about Z or Y and moves the game head in
that way.



--
Chris W
KE5GIX

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